The Trouble With Chickens

Review by Tintin, age 8

The Trouble With Chickens: A J.J. Tully Mystery
Author/illustrator: Doreen Cronin/Kevin Cornell
Publisher: Balzer + Bray (March 2011)
Source: NetGalley

The Trouble With Chickens is about two chicks and one chicken and one dog who go on an adventure to find their two missing chicks. Moosh is a chicken that is annoying. She bothers the dog by talking too long. Moosh is very loquacious. J.J. is very taciturn. He used to be a search-and-rescue dog and now he lives on a farm. I like that scary dog at the end because he's silly. I like the adventure they go on. My favorite part is when they tricked Vince. I would recommend this book to kids who like mystery and adventure books.

LitLass's note: As a retired search-and-rescue dog, J.J. Tully longs for another mystery to solve, but not one involving a crazy chicken who runs around "like a chicken without a head." He's approached by Millicent the chicken, also known as Moosh, and reluctantly agrees to help her find her two lost chicks. When his nose leads him to the house, and to inside dog Vince the Funnel, the real adventure begins. The short, humorous chapters (the black-and-white illustrations are fun to look at, too) make this detective book a great read-aloud but also wonderful for both reluctant and not-so-reluctant readers. And Tintin was happy to find out that this is the first in a planned series of J.J. Tully mysteries.

Find it: Amazon (check out the book trailer), IndieBound

To go along with the book, we made our own chicks. We started by dipping cotton balls (with a tweezer) into a cup of water and yellow food coloring:

And then we glued googly eyes and a folded-up piece of orange pipe cleaner to the head, glued the head to the body, and stuck the whole thing in a cleaned-out egg shell:


















We're linking this up with stART, A Crafty Soiree and Kids Get Crafty.